Author: David Andreasen

Last year a federal district court judge ruled in Jones v. Chappell that the long delays from conviction to execution render California’s death penalty cruel and unusual punishment. An appeal of that ruling is now pending before the Ninth Circuit, with oral arguments scheduled for this coming Monday, August 31. In People v. Seumanu, the California Supreme Court was presented with the first so-called “Jones claim” in a California court—that is, a claim that long delays result in unconstitutionally arbitrary enforcement of capital punishment. (Id. at pp. 91­-92.) In the 2001 case of People v. Anderson, the court had rejected...

In the 1980s, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down two important decisions about whether and when a defendant can get the death penalty for felony murder when the defendant did not personally kill or intend to kill. In Enmund v. Florida (1982), the Court held that a man who served as the getaway driver for a robbery, and who was not present when the unplanned killing occurred, was ineligible for the death penalty. Five years later in Tison v. Arizona (1987), the Court upheld a death sentence for two men who conducted an armed breakout of two convicted murderers after...

On February 18, the California Supreme Court granted review in People v. Buza, in which the Court of Appeal held that a California law requiring the collection of DNA from every person arrested for a felony violates Article I, section 13 of the California Constitution. Already pending before SCOCA is People v. Lowe, in which another Court of Appeal decision reached the opposite conclusion: that California’s DNA collection scheme did not violate the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. The opinions in Lowe and Buza were both issued after earlier California decisions were vacated in the wake of the U.S....

This is the first of two SCOCAblog posts on the recent opinion of Johnson v. Department of Justice. Keep a look out for a second posting with further analysis early next week. Summary: California’s sex offender registration scheme, Penal Code section 290 et seq., treats defendants convicted of engaging in non-forcible oral sex with a minor differently than those who engage in vaginal sex with a minor. Most pertinent to this case, the statutes give judges discretion whether or not to impose registration on an adult who has non-forcible vaginal sex with a 16-year-old, but lifetime registration is mandatory for an...

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SCOCAblog is a Berkeley Law and Hastings Law Journal publication focused on substantive coverage of the Supreme Court of California. We analyze cases and issues before the court, and report news about the court itself. Our contributors include former justices of the court, academics, and advocates experienced in appellate practice before the state high court.